With fewer than 100 days to go until the Olympics, London’s Heathrow Airport is hoping technology will help process huge passenger numbers in record time.

A worker looks out from the Control Tower at Heathrow Airport (Picture: Daniel Lynch)

Heathrow is bracing itself for the busiest period in its history as the main host airport for the London Olympics.

Passenger numbers are expected to peak at 240,000 a day around the opening and closing ceremonies – a 45 per cent increase on normal.

Unsurprisingly, serious doubts have been raised about the airport’s ability to cope.

The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee this month expressed its concern about the potential for overcrowded terminals and planes stuck on gridlocked runways.

For the previous summer Olympics, Beijing Capital International Airport got a new terminal bigger than Heathrow’s five combined, laid the asphalt for a third runway and employed a workforce of 500,000.

Heathrow has a workforce of 76,500.

London’s hub won’t have these luxuries or manpower; instead, some clever technology is helping to carry the load and Metro went along to take a look.

Despite the extra passengers, there won’t be any more airliners, which is fortunate as Heathrow already operates at 99.2 per cent capacity.

The baggage and storage areas at Heathrow Airport are the largest of their kind in Europe (Picture: Daniel Lynch)

Instead, those planes will be bigger, with every seat occupied, and they must land, taxi and disembark passengers without a hitch.

Simon Newbold, airside operations manager, says: ‘If you’re in a terminal and there’s an emergency, we might evacuate that building. If we lose a strip of concrete, it impacts on the whole of European airspace.’

Staff deal with a landing or take-off every 45 seconds using state-of-the-art guidance systems.

This equipment relies on clear runways so the signal that guides aircraft isn’t affected, which is where the QinetiQ foreign object debris (FOD) radar system comes in.

The new £2.5 million piece of kit alerts airside operations to any rogue or suspicious item on the runway by scanning the asphalt and comparing a stored image with the result, triggering an alarm if they don’t match.

Clean sweep: The debris radar (Picture: Daniel Lynch)

A high-density infrared camera is then used to zoom in on the suspect area for confirmation.

‘FOD radar covers stuff that shouldn’t be there that could be ingested into an aircraft engine with serious consequences,’ Newbold says.

He refers to the Air France Concorde that crashed in Paris after striking a strip of metal.

The system alerts staff to potential risks an average 30 times a day but Newbold adds: ‘Radar is an exact science, so it could just be picking up a bird scratching its backside before flying off again. I’ve had some knickers, pliers, a pair of reading glasses and a fuel cap. I’m yet to find a wing.’

Once on the ground, planes are parked using something called Safedock instead of the old-style marshallers waving table tennis bat-like aids.

After identification, invisible lasers guide the aircraft into a bay in double-quick time.

This means an airbridge can be attached and refuelling – via two pipelines starting 128km (80 miles) away in Fawley, Hampshire – can commence immediately.

During the Games, 60,000 more bags will be handled every day – a 35 per cent increase.

Some will be large items such as canoes, pole vaults and bikes.

Then there’s the security risks from the 1,100 firearms for the shooting events.